Archive for February, 2011

I have a few ideas for topics I want to write articles about but I just thought I’d pause for a moment and welcome suggestions from YOU! Do you have a question about the eyes, your vision or eye care that you always wanted to ask? It can be a science question, health care question or I can show you a cool eye trick or optical illusion! You name it and I’ll take all the suggestions and cherry pick a few good ones that interest me too! I don’t have all the answers but I am willing to do the legwork and find the answers so we both can learn heaps of new and exciting things! Leave a comment below this post with your suggestion or feel free to CONTACT ME. I’ll welcome suggestions from eye docs as well. I can’t wait to see what we both come up with!

Larger Pupils, Long Glances; these are what Valentine’s Days are made of.

Eye Love You.

It is undeniable that the eyes and love are connected somehow. Just think of all the ways the eyes are romantically referenced and you will begin to realize, there is a reason they call it “love at first sight” and “bedroom eyes.” Some say there is a ‘science of love’ and that it is scientifically proven that “both men and women use the direction of a person’s gaze as a signal of whether that person finds you interesting enough to look you directly in the face – and that sign of interest is, in itself, seen as attractive to the observer.” (source 1)

Zick Rubin, a psychologist at Harvard, studied couples who are in love and found that they look at each other “75 percent of the time when talking and are slower to look away when someone dares to intrude. In normal conversation, people look at each other for 30-60 per cent of the time.” (source 2)

Makeup emphasizing the Eyes

So what do you do to make someone fall head over heels for you? The ‘eyes’ have it, and women have known this for centuries. The art of women skillfully drawing attention to the eyes to seem more attractive to men can be observed throughout history. Through the modern day use of mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow, and eyelash growth enhancers like Latisse, women feel more beautiful and physically attractive by emphasizing their eyes. In the 1500s, women in Italy even used extracts from the Belladonna plant to dilate their pupils. They thought that bigger pupils would make their eyes seem more “dreamy” and would make men fall in love with them. (source 3)

And you know what? They were right! Bigger pupil size has been proven to be a sign

The Look of Love

of being in love. When you are in love and looking at your ‘object of affection,’ your nervous system is stimulated. Your heart races, your pulse quickens, and your pupils dilate as part of a neurochemical response. Why do you think they make it so dim in some romantic restaurants? They are trying to set the mood for men and women to feel more intimate and attracted to one another.

On this Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to look long and lovingly into your sweetheart’s eyes before whispering sweet nothings into their ear! The eyes really are the windows of the soul and perhaps the key to winning your soulmate’s heart! Happy Valentine’s Day!

The other day a friend of mine came in for an eye exam. The exam went smooth, a new prescription for glasses was issued but when we dispensed them to her a few days later, things just seemed off. Although things looked clear, her eyes felt strained, something wasn’t quite right. We checked the prescription of the lenses using our lensometer and found they were correctly made. I took her back into the exam room to double check the prescription and found this time during testing, I was getting inconsistent results. The patient could see 20/20 through a wide range of prescriptions. She was far-sighted and had an incredible ability to accommodate, or auto-focus, her eyes through many different lens powers. But if the eyes over-accommodate during the eye exam, it can lead to a false, inaccurate prescription for glasses.

When this happens, I have to stop the eyes’ ability to auto-focus or accommodate in order to determine a person’s true prescription for glasses. To do this, I use a cycloplegic eye drop. The drop temporarily paralyzes the ciliary muscle inside the eye, this muscle is attached to the crystalline lens of the eye and it contracts or relaxes to make the lens change its shape. When the lens can no longer change its shape, there is no opportunity for the person to auto-focus and what you are left with is the best measurement of a person’s refractive error, in other words, their true, most accurate, glasses prescription.

A cycloplegic refraction is often performed on children, people who have an great ability to vary their accommodation and also for people that are undergoing laser eye surgery in the near future. In these patients, it is important to obtain an accurate prescription for glasses without the eye’s auto-focus interfering with the results or masking the person’s true prescription.

Using cycloplegic drops during an exam does have temporary side effects on the patient. Besides taking away their accommodation and therefore leaving things blurry for a few hours, it dilates the pupil, making you more sensitive to light. They also may make the eyes redden, tear, and may cause an increase in eye pressure in patients who have narrow angle glaucoma. There are different types of cycloplegic drops, some are stronger and their effects last longer. Your eye doctor will determine if there is a need for you to have a cycloplegic refraction, it is not something that is routinely performed on every patient during the eye exam but when indicated, it certainly helps your eye doctor determine the clearest and most comfortable prescription for you!

We love when you love your new glasses!

Whenever you pick up your glasses, if you feel something is just ‘not quite right,’ tell your eye doctor. They are there to help you see clearly and comfortably and will do what it takes to make sure that you are happy with your new glasses. Feel free to ask questions, your vision is not only important to you, it is important to us too!